TROUBLED WATERS - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

methods can be improved where there is a will and where the situation allows for this. If
improvements cannot be adequately demonstrated, then clearly it remains legitimate to stop hunting
activity in the particular area in question. Public views about the treatment of animals are subject to
change over time. In some cases, society may conclude that the steps, which can be taken to improve
techniques for killing animals, are not likely to create methods that could ever be described as best
practice. Harpooning as a method for catching and killing cetaceans is not likely to be susceptible to
radical improvements in effectiveness. It seems likely, therefore, that society worldwide will identify
this practice as unacceptable, and move toward its prevention by robust global agreement.
Conclusion
The enforcement of any regulation of welfare standards during the slaughter of cetaceans on the high
seas is likely to be problematic, particularly without independent inspection and review. However, it
might be possible to instigate measures, which could, to a certain extent, improve the efficiency of
current whaling operations. Such measures could include:
• operating closed seasons;
• ensuring independent data collection;
• ensuring weapons are sufficiently powerful to cause immediate loss of consciousness or death and
are specifically adapted for the species taken;
• enforcing struck and lost caps for all hunts;
• limiting the pursuit time for individual animals; and
• improving methods for determining the onset of death and irreversible insensibility.
However, such measures are unlikely to overcome completely the serious animal welfare problems
inherent in whaling or bring whaling up to the standards of humane slaughter required for other
species killed commercially for food. These measures could only represent absolute minimum
requirements during a phase-out period. Mitigation measures could also include a mechanism for
qualitatively assessing whaling in terms of injury caused, including assessing behavioural changes
during pursuit, capture and slaughter, and providing an assessment of potential suffering, rather than
focussing exclusively on TTD.
Until improved criteria for determining death in cetaceans are developed, data on TTD and IDR are
not likely to be credible and should not be considered as scientifically reliable, but rather as
approximations, which may significantly underestimate the suffering incurred for some individual
animals. Time to death further, provides no means of determining the extent of injury caused.
This review of the scientific and practical evidence on whaling and welfare reveals that whaling
methods have inherent severe welfare problems. The low welfare potential of whaling is greatly
influenced by the many variables involved in all whaling operations. These include; gunner accuracy,
power of the primary and secondary weapons used, prevailing weather conditions, proximity and
orientation of the vessel to the whale, species specific factors (i.e. how well the weapon used has been
adapted for the characteristics of the species taken) and individual characteristics of the cetacean,
such as age, sex, and health, which all influence both the pursuit and the slaughter.
Many cetacean species are migratory, or occur across international boundaries. Therefore, no single
government may claim to have absolute sovereignty over these migratory or transient species. There
are robust legal precedents for the protection of cetaceans under domestic legislation, emerging
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